looking
awfully tired."

"Is that one for me and two for yourself?" said Miss Chase lightly.
"Personally, I would rather dress and go for a walk in the wood
down there."

"I don't think you had better," Nesta said, shaking her head
doubtfully. "We aren't allowed to go there alone. It is awfully
easy to get lost; and then there are snakes and things. You might
get into a mangrove swamp too--or you might meet black-fellows."

"Well, really," laughed Miss Chase, leading the way back to bed,
"you don't give a very flattering description. Why, at home I'm
often up at sunrise, out all by myself in the woods. You don't even
meet poachers, for they take good care not to be seen."

"I think England must be splendid," sighed Nesta.

"I wonder if you would really think so," Miss Chase responded. "Mr.
Cochrane gave you a very dismal picture of it, remember."

"Oh, but Bob has never been there. Besides, he was only
exaggerating, because he doesn't want us to go, you know."

Miss Chase gave such a graphic account at breakfast of her early
morning experiences that every one at the table shouted with
laughter. The jackasses were alluded to ever after as Aunt
Dorothy's lunatics.

"To talk of serious things," said Mr. Orban, half way through the
meal, "we shall have to be fearfully careful with the water. The
second tank is almost empty, and I doubt its lasting till the rains
come."

"That's bad," said Bob.

"Things are bad," said Mr. Orban. "I hope the rains will hurry up,
or we shall have the cane catching fire. We should lose every bit
of the crop if that happened."

"Dear me," said Miss Chase, "you seem to have fearful difficulties
to contend with. Nesta was talking about locusts only this
morning."

"Locusts will destroy the young crop," said Mr. Orban. "If it
escapes them, fire may destroy the old. Too much rain and too
little do equal damage. We've had a good many unprosperous years,
with one thing and another."

"It looks grand burning," said Eustace.

"A sheet of flame, and your heart in the middle of it, never seems
very grand to the man whose year's work and hope is being burnt
under his very nose," said Mr. Orban.

The children had seldom seen their father look as worried as he did
then. It seemed to Eustace there was trouble in the air.

"Can't you put out a fire in the cane once it begins?" asked Miss
Chase with interest.

"No," was the answer; "you can only try to stop it spreading by
cutting as